Kings16 said:
1) He tends to air his (bad) feelings in the press instead of keeping it in the dressing room. eg. Cechmanek after the Ottawa-Flyers series. / Coach Neilson and the cancer thing.
He simply said Cechmanek would not be back. It was big news at the time simply because Hitchcock gave the standard losing postseason spiel about how he had confidence in Cechmanek and that he would be back next year. If anybody's wrong there it's Hitchcock, as Clarke has the final say on all personnel decisions, still it's not like Hitchcock wasn't relieved as hell when he got the news anyways.
I don't recall him ever saying anything bad about Neilson, just that Craig Ramsay was a better fit for the team. It rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but replacing a coach with cancer is never going to be media friendly. He did what he thought was best for the team, not his public image.
Kings16 said:
2) He tends to press/rush players back from injury too quickly. eg. Lindros, Roenick
Neither Lindros or Roenick have ever claimed that Clarke has pressured them into playing hurt. They wanted Lindros to sit when he had his last concussion with the Flyers, as they had a commanding lead in the series. Lindros came back anyways and Scott Stevens ended his career with the Flyers. Roenick is a warrior and refused to even acknowledge the concussions he received in the playoffs until after the season. Kind of hard to rush a player back from injury when the coaching staff doesn't even know about it, no?
Dave Babych was the only player to ever claim that Clarke pressured him into playing too early. His story was pretty shady, especially bringing it up several years after he retired when his money was getting low.
Kings16 said:
3) He tends to be impatient with players & coaches. He brings them in and out faster than anyone else in the League. eg. Justin Williams, Barber.
I'll agree that we have not been successful at finding a coach until Hitchcock. It wasn't so much impatience, as much as it just became blatantly obvious after a while that each choice was the wrong one.
Justin Williams was moved for Danny Markov, which wasn't being impatient but merely making a deal for a position that was in great need.
Kings16 said:
4) He lets his personal feelings get in the way of business.
The only occasion which I can say that his personal feelings actually got in the way of business was the Lindros situation. He may have strong personal feelings, but this is the only time where it actually did get in the way of progress.
There's been some bad decisions when talking about coaches and you may not agree with his personality, but I still see very little direct effect from all of this on to actual players themselves. Either way, I still feel that merely having Clarke as GM is not even close enough to being sufficient to make an impact on who will have a better career.